Provisional figures released by the city authorities in Ghent (East Flanders) show that there were around 1.6 million visitors at the 10-days of the Ghent Festival that concluded in the early hours of Sunday morning. This year’s 180th Ghent Festival had the same number of visitors as last year. Last year’s festival had the highest number of visitors in 15 years.
Culture
Around 1.6 million visitors at 180th Ghent Festival
Published:
This year’s festival was busy to say the least. The busiest day was Saturday 15 July with around a quarter of a million visitors. During the festival’s 10 days the authorities were forced to close off a square where a performance was taking place no fewer than 13 times as a crowd control measure.
The police report no major incidents, although some visitors were the worse for drink.
Relatively few incidents, less rubbish
By midnight on Sunday the police had recorded a total of 80 incidents during the whole of the festival. These included fights and one incident of a voyeur taking photographs of women while they were using the toilet.
Thanks to the use of recyclable plastic drinking beakers having been mandatory at this year’s festival the city authorities report that the amount of rubbish thrown away by visitors to the festival was down by 30% on last year.